(This post was started using my new tablet!)

Well, I suppose that now that I have a tablet, I oughta start practicing. You see, I've never been one to have exceptional handwriting skills, so it's a good thing that I now have a computer that can understand my handwriting better than my 8th-grade Spanish teacher could. I used to get a LOT of 0s on my homework.

(At this point, I'm back to my keyboard because my hand began cramping up. I tried, at least... Typing at 90WPM  on my keyboard is superior to writing using a plastic pen on a mat.)

I've long dreamed of owning a graphics tablet, for quick mockups (I included my first here. Creative Commons license, feel free to derive from its awesomeness.) I picked up the Wacom Pen & Touch. Three days in, it has been fun to play with; while it hasn't been 100% everything that I ever imagined it would be, I think that it may be more of a learning curve issue rather than an issue with the technology itself. I'm used to using a mouse that I have to throw all over a mousepad, not a pen and a tablet that maps 1:1 with my monitor (originally, it mapped to both monitors before I turned off the second monitor in the tablet settings.)

One of the troubles I was having was that it seemed somewhat laggy when I was using my pen on Windows 7 with Photoshop CS3. I noticed mostly that when I was writing, I couldn't add small details well (look at how crazy all of the lines in my As are); it would sort of stick and think it was supposed to pull up some kind of command menu. I'd like to blame it on myself, as a user error... but it isn't at all obvious how I fix that issue, if it is one.

Regardless, I'm going to soldier on and try a few more mockups before passing more severe judgement. There are probably some hidden settings somewhere to fix; and once I have those figured out, I'll post a follow-up on how I did it. Hopefully I do it. Don't crush my dreams, Wacom.